Have done update and removed Microsoft patch. Still can't connect! Is it a Linksys router issue?

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Have done update and removed Microsoft patch. Still can't connect! Is it a Linksys router issue?

I was able to get my home computer (XP Home, D-Link router, Zonealarm Security Suite) up and running, yesterday.
Like everyone else I removed the Microsoft patch and all was good.
(Didn't even have to set the firewall to medium).
However, the same can't be said of the computers in my office.
They all have XP Pro, a Linksys router (BEFSR81), and Zonealarm Security Suite.
I did the same thing to these computers, but still can't access the internet.
Today, I installed the newest version of Zonealarm.
Still no luck.
The only real difference is the Linksys router.
I went to their support page, but didn't have any luck.
Does anybody have any ideas?

Re: Still can't connect! Is it a Linksys router issue?

I have both a Linksys Router/Wireless and Wireless Print Server. Neither was impacted by Tuesday's updates. What I suggest you try is to power the Linksys Router off and disconnect it from your service provider along with having your PC off too. Then reconnect the router to the service prover, power it up, then power up your PC. This allows the router to renew its connection with the service provider and your PC to renew its connection to the Router. For reasons not know to me, sometimes trying to do the IPCONFIG /RELEASE cmd and then a /RENEW doesn't work when rebooting does.
You didn't mention
if you had shutdown ZA and then found the
Router working.

Re: Still can't connect! Is it a Linksys router issue?

Re: Still can't connect! Is it a Linksys router issue?

I tried shutting everything down, yesterday, and it didn't work.
I also shut Zonealarm down, that too didn't help.
However, I failed to shut everything down, today, after I installed the newest version of Zonealarm.
I'll go to my office, now, and give it a try.
Thanks.

Re: Have done update, removed Microsoft patch. Still can't connect! Is it a Linksys router issue?

I would try and isolate whether it's some kind of side effect of the changes, or an unlucky coincedence.
1) Can you take a laptop from home, or from some place that you know it's working, and plug it into the Linksys router- then try for access? I'd use a wired ethernet port if possible.
2) From the existing office systems, how far does trace route take you? Trying using both a URL as well as an IP address [find one like googles from home etc]. For this MS hotfix issue, I was pretty much able to do anything as long as I didn't need to get the IP via DNS from the ISP etc.
3) Speaking of DNS, for the systems at the office, do they have hard patched IP addresses for the NIC's or is DHCP enabled? If it's hard patched, does the DNS &amp; Default gateway settings point to the Linksys router, or through it to the ISP? If it's DHCP, then the computers are probably being passed the ISP's DNS &amp; Gateway information, and that will show up in the ipconfig results for the next suggestion. If it's hard patched, then you should have the DNS and Gateway settings pointing to the Linksys router, which will then DNS relay.
4)
Open up a cmd box and do a ipconfig /all and see where the settings are pointing to for the DNS servers, then try and ping and traceroute them.
5) Regardless, also open up a cmd box and do a ipconfig /flushdns . In theory, once any fix is applied and you reboot, the DNS cache should be properly populated, but given that the hotfix made things go boom, perhaps the DNS cache is populated but the values there are bogus. Problem with DNS caching is that if the URL is there, it assumes the IP etc for the URL is valid.
6) If you've actually powered off the router, I doubt there is anything that would survive a cold shutdown to cause this. Or is the ZA stuff installed ON the router? I know some routers permit that. If so, remove all but 1
computer from the router, then disable the ZA software
ON THE ROUTER. See if you get access back. Doing it with 1 computer, for a very brief test should limit any potential hacker abuse.
Most of these suggestions aren't going to actually fix the problem, but try and help isolate where the failure happens.
Good Luck!